There was an instant’s silence, then the soft voice of the witch said, “Ozzie has no place to stay, Mr. Stubb.”
Both men whirled. “Where’d you come from?” Stubb asked.
“I fear he lied to you. He is here, staring at this ruined house, for the same reason you are. He wonders if he might not occupy his room one night more. Do not do it, gentlemen. It is very cold tonight. You would freeze.”
Stubb asked, “What about you, Madame S.?”
“I am here because I was forced to leave behind certain belongings. I have returned to fetch them.”
Stubb said, “We’ll help you carry ’em. Where are you going?”
“What is the nearest hotel of good quality?”
“The Consort. It’s only about four blocks.”
“From such a neighborhood as this? I am amazed. Then I go to the Consort. And yes, you may carry my things for me. You will save me the price of a taxi. Ozzie, you are a man and know about such matters. How may I pass through this fence?”
The barrier the wrecking crew had erected was not actually a fence, but a pack-train of yellow sawhorses carrying indolent orange lights, harnessed with an orange cord. Stubb cut the cord with his penknife, and Barnes moved one aside.
Not even the front wall of the house that had been Free’s was entirely gone as yet. Its outline remained, bricks hanging from their mortar to make a crazy arch that framed the dollhouse interiors of the front rooms. Under drifted snow, the hall was still recognizably the hall, with its stair vanishing upward into blackness. On its right, the parlor was changed mostly by the dying of the fire and the absence of the stuffed bird, its glass bell, and the table they had burned. To the left, Free’s bedroom seemed to bare all its poor secrets; his rumpled sheets cowered on the bed under a thin blanket of snow. Above, Candy’s room and the witch’s were only half exposed.
“Look!” Barnes pointed. “I saw something.”
“Where?” Stubb craned his neck and lifted his small body on tiptoe.
“Up there. Something moved.”
“Probably just the light.”
“Or Free. It could have been Free. I never saw him after this morning. Did you? Did anybody?”
The witch glanced back, her face half buried in the fur of her coat collar. “Free is dead.”
Stubb grunted. “You see the body?”
“I walk into it now.”
“Without a flashlight. Ozzie, you got a light?”
Barnes took out what appeared to be a small chromeplated pistol and pulled the trigger. A blue flame an inch long burned at the muzzle. “Butane,” he said. “You like it?”
“I’m crazy about it.” In the dim, blue light, Stubb examined the trampled snow. “Kids been in here. See that little sole with the hole in it? Neighborhood kid. Madame S., I hope you hid whatever you got, or it won’t be there now.”
“My things are here still. I feel them.”
Barnes hurried to catch up with her. “Hold onto the rail, please, Madame Serpentina, or you’ll fall.”
“Not on this. Not even without your light, Ozzie. I do not require it, nor would I if this place were entirely dark.”
Something creaked.
No one spoke; but there was in the air the almost palpable agreement not to speak, to ignore whatever it had been. The old house seemed to sigh. Perhaps there was no wind—the snow never stirred. Perhaps there was no sound.
“We’d better hurry, Madame Serpentina. The butane won’t last long.”
“I have told you I do not need light.”
Stubb muttered, “Well, we do.”
The door of the witch’s room was locked. She took her key from her purse and opened it to reveal one wall half dissolved in space and streetlights.
“I’m surprised the kids didn’t break in,” Barnes said.
“They were in fear, my Ozzie. They did not venture to the top of the stair, I think.”
“Tracks?”
“I do not need to look at tracks.”
Stubb said, “Somebody came up here. Big feet. Probably the wrecking crew.”
“No one has entered my room. That is all I care about. Ozzie, my bags are beneath that bed. Will you get them for me?”
One was an old suitcase, the other a bag in actual fact, a sack of hairy goatskin as big as a laundry bag. Its knotted thongs were sealed with a lump of wax that looked black in the faint light.
“‘Now I am done.’ So speaks the poet. If you will carry these for me, gentlemen? Mr. Stubb, it would perhaps be better if you were to take the suitcase. Ozzie, you may have the honor of the other. That is somewhat heavier, I
